Earth broke the record for the shortest day since atomic clocks were invented




You are right if you believe that the day is becoming shorter.

Since the development of the atomic clock, scientists have documented the shortest day ever on Earth.

The International Earth Spin and Reference Systems Service, which is in charge of maintaining world time, said that our planet's rotation was 1.59 milliseconds off the regular 24-hour day on June 29.

The time it takes the Earth to complete one complete revolution, or around 86,400 seconds, is called a rotation.

On July 19, 2020, when the day was 1.47 milliseconds shorter than usual, the previous record was recorded.

According to Dennis McCarthy, a retired director of time at the US Naval Observatory, the atomic clock is a standardized unit of measurement that has been used to measure the Earth's rotation and tell the time since the 1950s.

There have been days on Earth that have been considerably shorter, he noted, despite June 29 surpassing the record for the shortest day in contemporary history.

According to a 2020 research published in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, a single day on Earth when dinosaurs were still roaming the earth 70 million years ago lasted around 23 1/2 hours.

According to NASA, scientists have observed a slowdown in the Earth's rotation since 1820. It started accelerating a few years ago, according to McCarthy.

Why is the pace picking up?

There is no clear explanation for how or why Earth is rotating a little quicker, but according to McCarthy, it might be related to glacial isostatic adjustment or the shifting of land owing to melting glaciers.

According to him, Earth is an oblate spheroid because it is just marginally broader than it is tall. McCarthy said that the North and South poles' glaciers press down on the Earth's crust.

According to him, the Earth is becoming more rounded because the melting of the poles caused by the climate catastrophe results in less pressure on the top and bottom of the world. McCarthy said that the planet spins more quickly due to its round form.

According to him, figure skaters employ the same mechanism to enhance and reduce their pace.

According to him, it requires more power for skaters to rotate when their arms are extended out from their bodies during a spin. They move faster because their body mass is closer to their center of gravity when they tuck their arms close to their bodies, according to McCarthy.

According to him, as Earth gets more spherical, its mass moves closer to its center, speeding up rotation.

According to McCarthy, some have postulated a connection to the Chandler wobble. Our planet's axis of rotation is not parallel to the invisible vertical line that divides the Earth into two equal halves, known as the axis of symmetry.

According to him, this causes the Earth to revolve with a tiny wobble, much as when a football is tossed.

According to him, the football wobbles somewhat as it turns when a player tosses it because it frequently doesn't spin around the axis of symmetry.

If you're a really skilled football passer, you can align the football's axis of rotation with its axis of symmetry without it wobbling, according to McCarthy.

McCarthy countered that since the Chandler wobble is caused by the form of the planet, it is likely that it has no impact on the rotating speed of Earth. According to him, if the planet's form changes, the wobble's frequency, not its rotational frequency, changes.

taking away a leap second

According to McCarthy, the Earth has been slowing down in spinning speed ever since scientists started monitoring it with atomic clocks.

McCarthy stated, "Our everyday existence doesn't even acknowledge that millisecond." But if these factors sum up, it may alter how frequently we add leap seconds.

The scientific community has added a leap second to the clock to slow down our time to match Earth's in cases when the milliseconds accumulate over time, he said. According to EarthSky, 27 leap seconds have been added since 1972.

According to McCarthy, a leap second would have to be eliminated in order for our timekeeping system to keep up with Earth's accelerating rotational speed.

According to him, the elimination of a leap second wouldn't be necessary for another three to four years if the planet maintains its current rotating pattern.

Correction: The amount of seconds it takes for the Earth to revolve once on its axis was stated incorrectly in a previous version of this story.

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